Some later writers are silent concerning its noxious qualities, and others positively assert, that antimony, in its crude state, is not a poison, but if given from four grains to half a drachm, an excellent resolvent and purifier of the blood. Dr. James in the universal English Dispensatory says, _it is astonishing that so many physicians, and some of them men of learning, should so strenuously oppose the introduction of antimony into medicine, and without any manner of evidence or experience, treat it as a deleterious poison. For it appears that antimony reduced to powder is neither emetic nor cathartic: though, if given in large quantities, it may perhaps, by its weight, gently loosen the belly; and so far is it from being deleterious, that it is an excellent alterative in the mange of horses, and a salutary medicine in some diseases of men as well as cattle. It is therefore astonishing that any instances should occur of patients who have been deserted by physicians, and afterwards found a remedy in antimony, administered by quacks, who do not so much as pretend to any degree of medicinal knowledge._ But the arguments drawn from the example of giving antimony in large quantities to horses, do not prove its innocence in the human body. The crocus metallorum is used by farriers to the quantity of an ounce or two in the day, yet a few grains of this preparation produce in men the most violent and dangerous effects. The authority of Basil Valentine, which is brought to prove the innocence of crude antimony is also directly perverted, and the story of his having introduced it into medicine from an accidental observation of its effects upon swine, is no where to be found in the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony. Basil Valentine, _to whom_, says the same author, _we are obliged for discovering the medical uses of antimony, first using it internally, and enriching medicine with many of its preparations, having thrown away some antimony which he had used in the fusion of metals, and observing some swine, who had accidentally eaten it, to purge considerably, and afterwards become sleek and fat, took the hint of trying what it would do in human bodies_.